


| The week |

by brainonfire



Category: NCIS
Genre: AU, Bachelor Party, Bachelorette Party, F/M, Family, Wedding, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 09:45:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17896157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainonfire/pseuds/brainonfire
Summary: A week in Oklahoma.A week full of new experiences, excitement, tears and love.





	1. | Day one |

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hellokaelyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellokaelyn/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing. ♥

As the elevator doors peeped, Nick and Ellie looked up from their paperwork and encountered the gaze of a confused McGees.  
"Why aren't you two on the road already? Shouldn't you be on your way to the airport by now?  
"Yes, but I had to finish one more report and Nick had two more that he wanted to finish before Oklahoma," Ellie explained what Nick confirmed with a nod.  
"But you'll miss your flight if you don't leave right away."  
"Then we'll just take the next one," Nick said with a shrug of his shoulder and shrugged as he received a blow to the back of the head.  
"No you don't. Get out of here. I don't want to see you until Wednesday."  
Nick, Ellie and McGee changed looks before they looked at Gibbs.  
"What," he only barked with a questioning look.  
"Nothing boss," Tim said quickly while Ellie and Nick both jumped up from their chairs and grabbed their stuff.  
On the way to the elevator, Ellie stopped and looked at McGee. "Tim don't forget that your flight leaves at nine o'clock tomorrow night. We'll try to pick you up but George or Robbie may be waiting for you instead. Is that okay?"  
Tim nodded and shrugged his shoulders. "Sure. No problem."  
Nick gave him a thumb up, grabbed Ellie's hand and pulled her to the elevator whose door opened at the moment.  
"See ya guys."  
As the doors of the elevator closed, Ellie boxed against her fiancé's shoulder.  
"What the hell was that? I wanted to tell Tim that Delilah shouldn't forget the rings!  
With a meaningful glance he looked at her. "Do you think she really forgets our rings?"  
"...No."  
"You see."  
"Still, you didn't have to drag me along like that."  
"That's right, it wasn't you who took a blow from Gibbs."  
Smiling, the blonde-haired one nodded. "True, but feel honored. Since Tony is gone he has never done that...until now." Somehow it had something familiar to see Gibbs hit someone on the back of the head but apart from that it also woke a certain sadness in the bride-to-be. She hadn't seen or talked to Tony since he left the team and even when Ziva showed up alive no one had been able to reach him except Gibbs. Ellie understood why but still had asked Gibbs to send him the wedding invitation. She would have loved to have him there.

* * *

The flight to Oklahoma lasted less than four hours and as they entered the arrivals hall, a smiling George approached them.  
" Sis!" grinned her eldest brother broadly and before she could react she was already hanging in his arms. It was really surprising that not all three of them were there to try to frighten the poor Nick even now so close to the wedding. It wouldn't have worked anyway anyway - and George, John and Robert knew that very well - but that hadn't bothered their brothers the last time they tried.  
"Rob and John didn't manage to come along because Mum hitched them to help with the preparation," George explained as if he could read her thoughts and put her back on the floor before greeting Nick with a shoulder pat.  
"Preparation for what?"  
"Dinner."  
Ellie nodded with an understanding smile.  
He grinned meaningful. "You know Mum...okay so got everything?"  
Ellie nodded to the two suitcases and the bag Nick was carrying. Actually, Ellie had written packing lists for both of them, but unfortunately she had made the calculation without Nick. When they met, Nick had been a minimalist. On his desk there had been a single personal thing and the drawers had been empty. In the meantime, however, that had changed. Now on his desk next to the picture Sofia had taken of him stood a picture of Ellie and one of the first vacation they had both taken while on the partition wall next to him was one of McGee's wedding.  
Home didn't look any different. After Nick moved in with her, her apartment looked like someone was actually living in it. He also left his socks everywhere but that didn't bother Ellie much. After what they had been through the first nights he moved in, there wasn't much Nick could have done that would have really bothered her.  
"Well then let's go. Mum will kill me if the food gets cold because of us".

* * *

"Ellie! Nick! With a wide smile her mum put the bowl of soup - Ellie assumed it was soup - on the kitchen counter, came to them and hugged them both warmly. Ellie returned the hug and her gaze wandered to her fiancé for a moment. His face showed how relaxed he was and how much he enjoyed her warm greeting even though it hadn't always been that way. During her first visits Nick had had some problems with that. Not because he didn't like hugs but because of the demons he owed to his time as an undercover agent and which - Ellie was quite sure - were still haunting his head and which he now had under control.  
Her mother released the hug and looked at them with a happy smile. "How nice that you are finally here! We thought you had changed your mind."  
"No Mum, I said we're coming."  
"Yes, but I thought you might prefer to celebrate in a restaurant."  
Nick suddenly shook his head with a smile on his lips. "It was clear from the beginning where we would celebrate the wedding Barbara."  
"Exactly" Ellie hooked up with her fiancé and took his hand in her hands. "We are so grateful to both of you that we can host it here. Did you talk to the catering Mum? I gave the lady from the catering company your number and she said she'd call you about the delivery date for the food for the rehearsal dinner."  
"Yes, she called yesterday," her mother nodded as she started cutting the bread. "The food will be delivered Friday at noon and the food for the wedding will be delivered Sunday morning. The flowers will be delivered on Sunday at five in the morning and the pavilion company will arrive on Saturday afternoon as well as the tables and chairs.  
Relieved Ellie breathed out. Her mother was just amazing!  
" Excellent. Thank you Mum. Nick, George, Rob, John, Tim and Johnny have the last fitting appointment at the tailor on Wednesday and Mum you, Delilah, Morgan, Lucia, Amanda, Kayla, Jack and I have the last fitting appointment on the same day. I talked to the dressmaker and she comes with the clothes and everything and -" Ellie stopped in the middle of the sentence when she felt Nick's gaze on her. With a questioning look she looked at him although she could imagine too well what he was thinking at the moment. Head-shaking, the blonde-haired one smiled. "I think Dad and the others are over in the living room. Why don't you go to them while Mum and I set the table?  
With a relieved look he bent over to her and gave her a kiss. "I love you, Ellie."  
"I love you too," Ellie smiled and watched her fiancé for a few seconds before she stepped next to her mother and started cutting the vegetables for the salad. 

Suddenly her mum laughed quietly.  
"Why are you laughing at Mum?"  
"You love him a lot, don't you?" she asked and looked at her.  
Ellie looked at her mum with a frowned forehead just before she nodded. "Yes. Very much I mean otherwise I wouldn't marry him."  
"More than Jake back then?"  
"Mum..."  
"Eleanor, do you love Nicholas more than you loved Jake back then?"  
"Do you think it's right to ask me this six days before my wedding?"  
"I'm just asking because I want you to be sure of what you're doing. I like Nick, he's a good man but..."  
Ellie shook her head and put the knife she had just worked with aside before looking at her mother. "But he's not Jake."  
"Yes.  
"Yeah, and it's good that he's not Jake. Nick would never do to me what Jake did to me Mum. I don't understand that you're still holding on to him even though I've been done with him for years."  
"Eleanor I..."  
"No Mum. Stop comparing Nick to Jake, stop asking me about Jake every time we talk on the phone, and stop talking about Jake all the time. Just stop it. I'm done with this part of my life and so should you be too."  
Ellie breathed deeply, took the two baskets of bread and brought them over to the table. She couldn't understand why her mother had to keep mentioning Jake. George, John, Rob and her dad hadn't mentioned the name since the divorce but her mother still seemed to hope Jake and she would have a future together. Even now when she was already engaged to Nick and would marry him in a few days.  
"Eleanor?"  
"Yes Mum," sighed the blonde-haired woman, looking at her mother as she looked at her.  
"You didn't answer me."  
"To what?"  
" To the question if you love Nicholas as much as you loved Jake back then. "  
Unfortunately, Ellie didn't have an answer so she just kept on setting the table while she was looking for an answer.


	2. | Day two |

With a sigh the blonde-haired one leaned back on the Hollywood swing which stood on the veranda of her parents since she could think and looked to the sky where one could already guess the soon rising sun.  
The first night in Oklahoma was anything but pleasant for Ellie, not least because her mother didn't allow her to nod and they slept in the same room. After a discussion that almost turned into a fight, Nick spent the night in the guest room while Ellie had slept alone in her room or better said had tried it. She and Nick lived together in D.C. for almost a year now, each night sleeping in the same bed and whenever one of them had a bad dream he just had to grope next to him to know he was safe. That was the idea of Nick's psychiatrist when he suddenly started to wake up in the middle of the night and have a panic attack. In fact it had been a good idea because he hadn't suffered panic attacks so often since then and when he did, Ellie was there to calm him down. It worked well and the worry about what could happen if Nick was alone in a strange bed and suddenly got one of those panic attacks had robbed Ellie of her sleep. That and the anger that she had let Nick talk her into celebrating her wedding in her parents' garden.  
Admittedly Ellie had been happy when Nick told her about this idea but that was only because she had forgotten how much her mother mourned her marriage to Jake. After the first phone call with her mum this joy had gone but no matter how hard she tried to change Nick's mind it hadn't worked. Nick had insisted and stayed stubborn and now they were in Oklahoma sleeping in a house where they were not allowed to sleep in the same room. Wonderful. That's exactly how Ellie had imagined the days before her wedding.

"Ellie," it sounded quietly from the door and Ellie saw a tortured looking Nick. "What are you doing out here? It's still dark."  
Oh how much she hated her mother at the moment. "I guess the same thing like you," said Ellie quietly stretching her arms out to her fiancé who immediately closed the small distance between them and sat next to her on the swing. With a sigh, Ellie slung her arms around Nick as he pulled her onto his lap and buried his face on her neck.  
"I won't ask how you slept," she murmured as her hand kept gently running over his hair down to his neck.  
Nick sighed softly on her neck. "No...don't do it better."  
"I shouldn't have let my mum separate us like horny teenagers and you should have come to my room immediately after the first panic attack."  
"It wasn't that bad for Ellie...," Nick said and turned his eyes on her.  
With her eyebrow raised she looked at her fiancé. "How often?  
"What do you mean?  
Ellie narrowed her eyes. "You know exactly what I mean.  
Again Nick sighed and rubbed his face. "Three or four...I don't know exactly."  
"Damn..."  
"Ellie, that's just..."  
"Are you taking the meds Doctor Confalone gave you?"  
"Yes, of course I'm taking the meds." Nick pushed something from Ellie so that he could look him in the face. "Look, you know she said there's gonna be good days and less good days and this is just one of the less good days Ellie. No need to worry."  
"Yes, but I'm worried about my future husband."  
Now she had done it. Finally Ellie had said the word 'husband' out loud in a personal context.  
"And your future husband" Nick pointed out the word with a grin. "says you have no reason to worry."  
"Well," Ellie said and stood up when her Smartwatch started ringing. "that's nice that he says that but...still we won't sleep in separate rooms tonight. I will take care of that"  
Nick grabbed her hand and Ellie's gaze wandered to him again. " Don't...we...we get married soon and then we sleep in a room. Don't argue with your mother".  
"Oh honey...you are sweet but I am grown up and if I want to sleep in a bed with my fiancé I will do that too. My mother has no say in that." Ellie pulled him from the swing and towards the front door. "And now let's go inside. There's breakfast soon and at eleven we have to pick up Tim, Delilah and the kids from the airport."  
"At eleven? I thought they weren't coming until tonight."  
"Change of plans. Gibbs gave Tim the day off, so they're coming early."  
"How nice to know that to."  
With a grin Ellie looked at her fiancé and opened the front door. "Well, now you know."

* * *

After an uncomfortable breakfast with her family, Ellie couldn't wait to get out of the house. Luckily after breakfast it was time to pick up the McGees from the airport. Still angry that Nick and she hat so to sleep in separate rooms - which had obviously harmed her fiancé - Ellie had barely talked to her mother that morning and instead focused all her attention on Nick, which he couldn't quite handle.  
"Well, you should have said something to her, Ellie... at least 'Good morning'. She's your mother," Nick said quietly as they sat together in her eldest brother's van and were on their way to the airport.  
"That may be, but I'm still allowed to be angry with her. If she hadn't been so stubborn we both could have had a...pleasant night but instead you went through some horrible stuff and I couldn't get a wink of sleep." Ellie drove the van through Oklahoma City's traffic and sighed angrily as another car pushed in front of her. Her nerves were shattered and every minute she spent on the streets of this city, her mood worsened even more.  
"Stop the car."  
"What?  
"I told you to stop the car."  
"No. Why would I do that?"  
"Ellie stop the car," Nick repeated quietly but Ellie shook her head.  
"No."  
"Eleanor stop this damn car."  
With a frowned forehead she looked at her fiancé before steering the car into the breakdown lane and stopping.  
"It's okay. Here. We stopped. And now what?  
Nick turned to her and saw her with a look at which Ellie knew only from interrogations. "What's wrong, Nick?"  
"You tell me."  
Ellie frowned again. "What do you mean with that?"  
"Tell me what's wrong with you."  
"Nothing is wrong with me. What's supposed to be wrong with me?"  
"I don't know', he explained and shrugged his shoulders. "I understand that you are angry with your mother and I know how you can be when you are angry but...at the moment you are almost aggressive."  
Aggressive? She certainly wasn't aggressive!  
"That's not true. I'm not aggressive," Ellie protested and put her arms in front of her chest. "Can we please keep going? In the end Tim, Delilah and the kids will have to wait for us.  
For a few minutes Nick stared at her and just as Ellie started to feel almost uncomfortable he sighed. "Fine. Let's swap places."  
"What? No. You don't even know the way to the airport."  
" So what?  
"Then why should I let you drive?"  
"Because" Nick bent over to her and she felt his lips for a short moment on hers. "you will certainly not go any further, so hop. Get out and let me take the wheel."

"I still can't believe you threw me out of my own brother's car," Ellie grumbled and stared out the car window. After the brief discussion, Nick had got out, got around the car and had lifted her out of the driver's seat when she had refused to get out herself. She loved this man but now and then she wanted to beat him to death.  
"I asked you to get out but you didn't want to."  
"Yes because I can also drive."  
"Not the way you are at the moment, Ellie. I don't know what's wrong with you, whether your mood is related to the stress of the wedding preparations or whether it's something else, but I'm definitely not letting you drive."  
"Nick, you're crazy."  
"Yeah, and yet you marry me so you marry a...weirdo."  
"Oh shut up and drive" She took a look at her watch. "It's already quarter to eleven and we need at best half an hour to the airport."

* * *

 Three quarters of an hour later they finally arrived at the airport and picked Tim, Delilah and the children up from the agreed meeting point. After a warm welcome, Nick and Tim went ahead with the children while Ellie walked next to Delilah.  
"And how is our pretty bride?" Dalilah asked and looked at her.  
That was a very good question. "Good I guess."  
"But you don't sound like Ellie."  
With a sighed and frowned forehead Ellie turned her gaze against the ground.  
"My mum asked me a question yesterday for which...I had no answer and that worries me..."  
"But you don't get cold feet, do you?" Delilah's voice had a worried undertone and Ellie quickly shook her head.  
"No, of course not. I love Nick and I'm looking forward to becoming Mrs. Torres soon."  
"Does that mean you'll take his last name?"  
Her gaze wandered to her friend and a little smile played around her lips as she nodded. "Yes. Nick said that I don't have to and that he doesn't mind if I keep my name but..."  
"But you know him and you know that this is important to him even if he says otherwise."  
Ellie nodded. "Exactly.  
"That's a big proof of love from you Ellie...especially because you didn't take Jake's last name."  
"I..." She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "It's not a big deal. I mean, it doesn't bother me to take his last name."  
Delilah smiled and nodded. "Okay...and what was the question you didn't have an answer to?"  
"My Mum..." Ellie looked at Nick who had a heated discussion with Tim and somewhat dampened her voice. "My mom asked me if I loved Nick as much as I loved Jake back then."  
"Oh..."  
She nodded. "Yes and I didn't know what to tell her because I don't know the answer. I love Nick and I'm over Jake but..."  
"But Ellie, you know the answer," said Delilah and looked at her with a frowned forehead.  
"No, I don't."  
"But you do."  
"Delilah, I'd know if I knew the answer."  
The brown-haired one stopped with her wheelchair and Ellie did the same. "You say it doesn't matter to you to accept his last name. Right?  
"Yes.  
"Well, and the last time you got married there...-"  
Now it made click also with Ellie. "I wanted to keep my last name and not accept Jakes," she said slowly and nodded. Delilah was right. The question about the surname shouldn't matter at a wedding because if you loved someone everything else was unimportant. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," quoted Ellie and grinned at Delilah's look.  
Ellie shrugged her shoulders with a grin. "A little of both can never hurt."  
"Well...that's right."  
"Yeah and now come on we must hurry up or your husband, your children and my fiancé will leave without us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a scale of one to ten... how much do you hate Mrs. Bishop right now? For me it is nine... xD


End file.
